Curated shopping for the style-conscious consumer

Curated
consumption is increasingly finding a foothold in the marketplace as consumers
demand experiences that combine authenticity and storytelling. It’s a trend
driven by the sheer quantity of data that floods our daily lives constantly
demanding our attention.

As
Details magazine once quoted Steven Rosenbaum,
author of the book
Curation Nation: How to Win
in a World Where Consumers Are Creators; “Nobody revels in
being overwhelmed and so we start looking for people who say, ‘This thing
you’re interested in? I will curate it for you.’ We’re like, ‘Okay, you’re my
new best friend.”

After
eight years at the helm of the South African edition of
Elle magazine, Jackie Burger last year hung up those editor’s shoes
but the love affair with fashion, style and womanhood continues.
Her latest endeavour could be described as a magazine being brought to life.

Launched
last month in Stellenbosch at an event attended by editors like
Glamour‘s Pnina Fenster and recognisable
style connoisseurs such as singer Lindiwe Suttle and actress Jena Dover, Salon
58 is about delivering a curated experience for women who are looking for something
that “underwrites a sensibility of empowerment through conversation and
conscious living”.

A
gentlemen’s club for women? Perhaps that and more. “It was an idea triggered by
a visit to Coco Chanel’s salon at 31 Rue Cambon in Paris as well as many
beautiful engagements with women during my time as editor and being inspired to
follow my passion by business and life coach Stanford Payne,” Burger tells the Mail & Guardian.

Salon 58 will host monthly soirées for women to get together, network and, of course,
discuss things that are of importance to them. Style is intricately woven into
this and serves as a departure point. Through relationships cultivated over
decades working in the South African fashion and publishing industries, Burger
seeks to foster collaboration and, at the launch, provided space for fashion designer
Elaine du Plessis to launch her new label
Drotsky. This follows a few years
after du Plessis’ former label Christopher Strong closed up shop.

“We
have laterally themed seasonal Salons and each one will call for aligned
artists and artisans to participate. Curating the experiential content for each
one is very organic and yielded from an incredible team of creatives that I
work with. We gather to share ideas and work from a valued-shared collaborative
base and not a singular directive.”

Burger
adds that her time at
Elle magazine was never about creating a legacy for
herself but her belief in mobilising ideas that empower talent and create
opportunities to stimulate growth and cultivate a cultural pride. This is
something Salon 58 is positioned to continue doing.

“In
my opinion the very essence of fashion has lost integrity and I hope to
reconnect women with the language of clothing and the creativity and
intelligence of design,” she adds. “We live in a high-speed, fast-download
world with so much to do and so little time. The fashion offering is
over-flooded with lookalikes and information overload blurring our innate
ability to make intuitive choices. Salon 58 is a result of a personal need I
wish to share: one based on a desire to have authentic conversations that
illicit informed opinions, a yearning for edited and quality offerings free
from the yardstick of ‘on trend or not’ and a pause for the senses to really
embrace the art of beautiful living.”

Titled Allure, the art of being a woman, Salon 58’s first soiree for 2015 takes
place on Saturday, April 18. Tickets are available via Webtickets. While the
soirees are currently only taking place in Cape Town, Burger says she hopes
to take her concept nationwide soon.